The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) is tasked with safeguarding the state’s natural resources, but this week a federal judge found the Agency responsible for the deaths of 23 rare whooping cranes.

The TCEQ’s management of water flows into the Guadalupe River lead to the deaths by not allowing enough freshwater into the river, raising its levels of salinity, according to U.S. District Judge Janis Graham Jack.